.FLYINGHEAD SMARTPHONE SMARTS
.TITLE Smartphone smarts for a mobile world
.AUTHOR Jessica McCurdy Crooks
.SUMMARY How to get started getting the most out of that amazingly powerful little computer you carry in your pocket or purse.
.OTHER
There are so many people who own a smartphone but they are only using it as a basic cellphone. For one thing, many people are afraid to play around with their smartphones for fear for causing any problems. Others simply do not need a smartphone but buy one anyway (you know who you are!). Another set of smartphone owners simply do not know how and where to get the information to maximize the features of their smartphones.
In this article, I’ll do my best to help you understand how to get started getting the most out of that amazingly powerful little computer you carry in your pocket or purse.
.H1 Smartphone capabilities
There is a blurred line between smartphones, cellphones and even PDAs — well, except that smartphones have effectively killed the PDA as a market category.
All these devices can now do much more than just make and receive calls and transmit text messages. Today’s smartphones are literally miniature computers. They have cameras, video cameras, voice recorders, note taking applications and music as basic features. Many even have GPS capabilities.
While many business people still use the BlackBerry as the standard, more are moving towards the Apple iPhone or a powerful Android device as well. The iPhone is seen as a combination iPod and smartphone, along with that certain Apple something, giving it a definite edge over competing products.
.H1 Using smartphone applications
One of the major capabilities of smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone is the availability of applications to help do things better. They enable working on the go like never before. Workers or business people on the move can still give presentations, and listen in or participate in conferences.
When it comes to applications for the various smartphones, choices are mind-blowing. The list of applications available to iPhone users currently stands at 250,000 and growing. None of the others have reached that point, but Google’s Android is slowly gaining ground. Currently, there are approximately 50,000 applications for the just the Droid model of Android phone alone.
By the way, that’s often a point of confusion. Android and Droid are not the same thing. Android is Google’s open-source mobile operating system. Droid is a branded phone handset made by Motorola for the Verizon network. It makes the other Android phone makers nuts when you point to their Android-based phones and call them Droids.
New apps for smartphones are frequently introduced to the market. There is a smartphone app for almost anything these days. Beauty junkies have plastic surgery apps that show what they’ll look like in before and after shots. There are apps ranging from language training to pickup lines — you name it, chances are, there is a smartphone app for it. One application, iHeadache helps diagnose headaches and generates reports that can be shared with a physician for proper diagnosis and treatment.
Our own editor-in-chief wrote [[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daysto-schools-out/id292840160?mt=8|40 separate pinpoint productivity apps]] that’ll tell you the number of days to things like Christmas or the 2012 elections (he says they’re silly, but fun — he also says don’t quit your day job if you write silly apps like these).
Business people who are always on the go will find some apps worth exploring. These include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET DataViz Documents to Go: This app allows the viewing, editing, creating of documents in EXCEL, WORD, Powerpoint, PDF and much more. This is a powerful tool that is available for a wide variety of smart devices.
.BULLET Scan2PDF Mobile: This amazing app allows you to scan documents and convert them to PDF right on your phone. Also allows the sharing of the document by email right from your phone. It is available for the iPhone and Android.
.BULLET TextPLUS: It allows the sending of multiple texts, so group texting is easy and convenient. Best of all, this app is free.
.END_LIST
.H1 Connecting your smartphone to your PC
There are predictions that the smartphone will eventually replace the PC. There is not much evidence to support this yet, but the relationship and interaction between the two devices is interesting. With a BlackBerry and iPhone one doesn’t need the PC to get a lot done. However, there are still many things that are best done on a PC.
Graphic designers, Web designers, indexers and many other professionals will tell you that they need a PC or Mac. And they do. However, the interaction between the smartphone and the PC can help to improve productivity. The smartphone makes it impossible to miss an important email. Best of all, the computer and smartphone can be synchronized so that emails are received on both. Notes can be written on a smartphone and later transferred to the PC if needed.
What separates smartphones
There are a few things that separate the smartphones from each other, at least currently.
One of the biggest issues with smartphones is deciding which mobile data plan to go with. Unfortunately, many phones are locked to individual carriers. The iPhone is on AT&T, HTC Evo 4G is on Sprint and the Droid X is on Verizon. If you don’t happen to like AT&T, then you can’t have an iPhone. If you like Verizon, then you can get a Droid, and so on.
No one wants a smartphone that is sluggish when it comes to being online. Both the newer generation iPhone and the Android have a lot going on in this department. The Evo 4 is no snail here either, especially where 4G is available (not nearly as big an area as Sprint would have you believe, but when it works, it’s impressive).
What the instrument can do is important as well. All of the top devices share many of the same features, but there are differences. The Evo 4G and Droid X enable the simultaneous use of various applications, but this may slow things down a bit.
The iPhone allows listening to music and reading your email at the same time. The iPhone 4 enables much more multitasking than its forerunners, and Apple claims that this will not slow down the instrument. Your mileage may vary.
The phone’s aesthetic is a big deal for some users. Their smart device must make a statement. By most accounts, Apple’s newest release, the iPhone 4 is the sexiest of the top bunch.
It may all seem pretty complex and daunting, but with some research and asking questions, traversing the smartphone landscape is pretty exciting.
.BIO
